Motherboard issues? or "why do I do things for family??"

[canooten]

Got my bro-in-laws computer (2-3 years old e-machines) that had simply died on him by his account. His description sounded like a dead PSU. He said that it stopped booting but the fan would come on, then after a few tries, the fan (PSU fan) died too. Then nothing.

I replaced the PSU and it's getting power now, but that's it. No video out, no POST, nothing. The PSU is good....put it in my computer and everything works fine. The CD drive on the e-machines will eject and I get an initial HD light a second or two after pressing the power switch, but that's the only light I get. Processor fan is spinning too.

Monitor is fine...tested on another system as is the HD...backed it up on another machine.

I've removed all drives and RAM, still nothing. I've yet to find the documentation showing the reset jumper settings, but I did pop the battery last night and will try booting when I get home later just to see if it needed resetting.

Anything else I should try before replacing the MB or the system?

 

[atomic tofu]

if he never fiddled with the innards, there's a possible brown out somewhere on that mobo.

most of the time you can pull it out and look carefully...see a little scorch mark somewhere....dead mobo. That's if you want to take it out, which would more or less mean you have to disassemble most of the pc.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Check every capacitor on that motherboard, and check over it very carefully for any thing that has burned out, if the PSU died, it could have EASILY taken the mobo and everything else out with it and caps that are slightly poped are signs of a blown mobo.

 

[veedubfreak]

Yep that sounds like a bad board. Being 3 years old it could be in that time frame that capacitors were leaking and killing boards/psus. Check all the caps on the board and see if they are bulging, if they are, then its time for a new computer.

 

[sPlAtOiD]

Well Ive had about used e-machines from a goodwill and all the boards were bad. Figure the odds.

 

[canooten]

if he never fiddled with the innards, there's a possible brown out somewhere on that mobo.

most of the time you can pull it out and look carefully...see a little scorch mark somewhere....dead mobo. That's if you want to take it out, which would more or less mean you have to disassemble most of the pc.

I know he's never opened the case....BIL and family are not the type.

No problem taking the MB out....I'll remove it and check it over good. Probably just have to tell them it's time to upgrade.

Thanks!